Economy

Professor McKibbin told the Melbourne Institute conference dozens of European countries now had gross government debts on track to exceed 60 per cent of GDP. "Japan is forecast to be 200 per cent of GDP, the US is forecast to be over 100 per cent of GDP," he said.

"At zero interest rates that can be sustained, but at 5 per cent interest rates countries have to put aside 5 per cent of their GDP every year just to service the debt. That is not sustainable."

They are big, they are powerful, and they have lost interest in local lending. In the past three years, the four largest banks have cut back on small business lending by a full 53 percent. The two banks that were the largest recipients of TARP funds, Bank of America and Citigroup, have cut back on local lending by 94 percent and 64 percent, respectively.

“Throw yourself into a nuclear reactor and die!” one investor shouted. Japanese shareholders are usually more polite, but this was the annual meeting of TEPCO, the Japanese power company that owns the Fukushima nuclear plant.

It will most likely take months before the policy becomes official. On Friday, the State Department of Environmental Conservation will release a long-awaited study of the process, widely known as hydrofracking. The report will include recommendations about how to proceed, and then there will be a lengthy period for public comments before a final determination can be made.

The agency detailed its recommendations in a statement it released on Thursday afternoon.

Environment

In its way, though, that very complaint illustrated Wiley’s reason for doing the experiments at all. He believed that everyone in the country was eating chemically treated foods, that all consumers were receiving daily apothecary doses. He suspected that the country was, in fact, suffering from a coast-to-coast epidemic of food poisoning, strictly due to commercial food production. But he wanted more than his own suspicions. He wanted to prove it, and then, he wanted to stop it.

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When you think about how tiny $14 billion is compared to the $3.8 trillion Federal budget and the $14.5 trillion U.S. economy, it makes you want to weep; how cheaply we have sold our government, and how much we suffer under the whip of those who bought it for a pittance.

What is amazing is what cheap whores they all are. You would think that they would hold out for more but I guess that comes after they leave congress.

When you think about how tiny $14 billion is compared to the $3.8 trillion Federal budget and the $14.5 trillion U.S. economy, it makes you want to weep; how cheaply we have sold our government, and how much we suffer under the whip of those who bought it for a pittance.

What is amazing is what cheap whores they all are. You would think that they would hold out for more but I guess that comes after they leave congress.